First, we air a portion of Ursula K. Le Guin’s acceptance speech from the 2014 National Book Awards, where she received the Lifetime Acheivement award. Ursula K. Le Guin, wrote fantasy and sci-fi for 77 years of her life, contributing many books such as The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Word for World is Forest & The Earthsea Series. She died on Monday, January 22nd at the age of 88. Her fiction touched on many themes, including anarchism, taoism, gender, environmentalism, sociology, anthropology and psychology. Her official website is here. The full video this was pulled from, including the introduction by Neil Gaiman can be found here.

The third and fourth portion of CKUT’s Prison Radio Show interviews with former Black Panther and BLA Political Prisoner of War Jalil Muntaqim. In the third segment, Jalil speak about being incarcerated during the Attica Uprising, the ideas of Intercommunalism, Internationalism and Nationalism, as well as the idea of revolution. In the final portion, Jalil speaks on spirituality and politics, ISIS and a message to rappers. More of his writings and info on his case can be found at freejalil.com

We are nearing the end of the second week of #OperationPUSH!, which is described in a statement released by participants, as a work stoppage or “laydown” in at least eight prison facilities around the state of Florida. The beginning of this plan coincided with Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday on January 15th 2018, in protest of the deplorable conditions in FL prisons. This comes hot on the heels of the September 9th prison strike which took place in 2016 on the 45th anniversary of Attica, and disrupted operations in dozens if not hundreds of prisons across the country. This is being called the largest prison strike in US history, and was followed by several subsequent strikes all over the country. It has been difficult to get information about OperationPUSH!; FL prisons are being predictably recalcitrant and have also been imposing communication blackouts for even suspected participants.

However, there has been one major insight into this situation in the form of an article by Kevin Rashid Johnson entitled Florida Prisoners are Laying It Down. In this article, Rashid (who is a prison journalist and self taught paralegal) describes conditions within Florida prisons in detail, including the high cost of goods in the commissary coupled with the fact of forced and unpaid labor, up to and including a culture of abuse and neglect by prison staff. In retaliation, Rashid has been thrown into an unheated cell, with no working toilet and with a window that cannot properly close, making the temperature equal to the subzero environment outside.

This is a clear sign of retaliatory torture, and surely is what Rashid calls “a true emergency”. It is urgently requested that people call the prison to advocate for and demand the immediate cessation of this abuse on the part of the prison!

A little heads up about media worth checking out. This week, It’s Going Down aired a podcast interview with an anarchist in the U.S. who’s from Turkey about the Turkish assaults on Afrin, one of the cantons of Rojava, the autonomous Kurdish region in Northern Syria. Afrin is administered by the Democratic Confederalist PYD and defended by the YPG & YPJ militias. The interview covers some of the history as relevant to anarchists, some of the developments of Rojava through the Syrian Civil War, their alliance with the United States and Rojava’s relationship with Turkey and other states involved in the proxy wars in the region. This interview is well worth a listen, and hopefully can aid you in organizing reading groups, fundraisers or demonstrations in your area in support of Rojava and it’s tenuous experiment.

An Update from Us!

Just a little heads up, too, we’re messing with our podcast a little bit, not so much in format but more so in distribution. So, we set up a soundcloud with the three latest episodes and all of the episodes in our podcast stream are now up youtube though the videos only plays our show as you’d hear with the episode image as the background. If those platforms are your deal, swing by and follow us. I’d also like to remind y’all that we’re up on itunes. If you go into that blasted program and rate our content and write reviews, it fucks with the algorithms and will make the show visible to wider audiences.

Also, I’d like to reiterate what we say in the introduction to the show, that we have a free edition of the show that’s 59 minutes in length and falls within the requirements of the FCC here in the U.S. for radio broadcast. If you have a community or college radio station in your area and you’d like to hear us up on the airwaves, getting into folks’ cars, houses, jail cells, work places or whatever by the magical accident of radio science, check out our Radio Broadcasting link at our website, hit us up on social media or email us to get the ball rolling. In addition, we suggest getting some friends together to petition the local radio overlords to get us on their station.

Finally, just to remind y’all, we love hearing feedback and show suggestions. Finding a different person or persons every week to fill an hour with interesting content is hard work, and cues from y’all really helps us plug away at this volunteer endeavor. As always, you can email us at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net

September 9th Prisoner Strikes with Portland ABC

This week’s episode features a conversation with Tyler Durden of Portland Anarchist Black Cross & the Portland Industrial Workers of the World about the upcoming September 9th National Prisoner Work Stoppage across the United States. September 9th, the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prison Uprsing in 1971 and is an effort by prisoners in local, state, federal and immigration facilities around the country to address issues around the nature of their confinement, racial and class disparities in incarceration, under-and-un-payed (in some states, forced) labor often described as legalized slavery. Over the hour, we talk about organizing efforts and how to clue in to the strikes as they start this week.

A few quick announcements for this episode…

Call for Anti-DAPL Solidarity Actions

There is a call-out for acts of solidarity with the folks resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline. As we spoke about a couple of episodes ago in Gil’s interview with LaDonna Brave Bull Allard who owns the land where the Sacred Stone Camp is held, resistance to the pipeline designed to carry crude oil from source through 3 states to Illinois and cross the Missouri River a number of times continues to grow. Indigenous peoples and their supporters are gathering for nonviolent, direct action protests to block the pipeline’s construction and the threat it poses to the soil, animals, plants and that longest river in North America, the Missouri. From https://nodaplsolidarity.org comes the calll for #NoDAPL Global Weeks of Solidarity Action from September 3-17th. That site offers suggestions of places to target for protest. nodaplsolidarity.org also offers suggestions of banks and businesses maybe in your area that are funding the pipeline and that could be a nice place to visit to express one’s distaste for the pipeline.

Plug into Sept 9 actions nationwide

If you’re in the U.S. and looking to plug into a supporting prisoner struggle in your area, check out IGD for a partial and growing list of events nationwide. If you’re planning a public event not up there, email it into info(at) itsgoingdown(dot)org for other to see.

Asheville Sept 9 action

Here in Asheville, folks will meet at Aston Park, at the corner of South French Broad and Hilliard in Downtown, at 5:30 to discuss a solidarity march. Bring banners, noisemakers, signs and so forth.

Solidarity with Coyote Acabo

Coyote Acabo , an anti-racist activist from Olympia, WA has a rough road ahead of him and could really use some support. He is currently serving 13 days on an anti-police graffiti case, and has another 22 days to serve in the very near future on a case where he was convicted of throwing a rock at a truck belonging to a neo-nazi. That’s a neo-nazi that showed up with many others to counter an anti-police brutality protest that Coyote was a part of.

Last year, Olympia saw a lot of spirited marches and demonstrations in protest of an Olympia police officer shooting two young black men, Andre Thompson and Bryson Chaplin. In response to the very understandable anti-police brutality demonstrations that were going on at that time, neo -nazis were showing up to disrupt the protesting which at times even meant neo-nazis attacking the protesters.

Well, Coyote has a third case that he is currently dealing with, and for that case his trial starts on September 19th where he is being charged with felony assault. In this case he is being accused of pepper spraying a counter protester who grabbed someone who was a part of an anti- police brutality protest that Coyote was a part of.

Coyote is now in the city jail in Olympia, WA and money is being raised that will go towards phone calls , commissary, and to help his family out while he is locked up.

Visit the crowd funding site, here: https://rally.org/supportcoyoteacabo to learn more about how you can donate to the support fund. Also, please pass it around as well. Solidarity from near and far is so important in times like these.

Call for International Solidarity Oct 8-9, 2016, with the ZAD at NDdL in France

From Squat.net:
“the entire zone is due for evictions to start the construction of this absurd airport. Prime minister Valls has promised a “Rendez-Vous” this October to evict everyone who is living, working, building and farming on the zone.

On October 8th, tens of thousands of people will gather on the zad to demonstrate that the determination of the movement is as strong as ever. Honouring farmers struggles from the past, we will come with wooden walking batons and leave them on the zone, as a sign of the commitment to come back and pick them up again if necessary. We will also raise a barn, built by dozens of carpenters during the summer, which will be used as a base, should evictions happen.

We are calling on all international groups and movements to either come to the zone on October 8th or show their solidarity with the zad through actions directed at the French government or multinational Vinci in their own towns and cities on that day.

The airport will never be built. Life on the zad will keep on flourishing!”

Bend The Bars Conference

This week we spoke with Alex about Bend the Bars conference which is taking place in Columbus OH on the weekend of August 26th-29th. This is a gathering which was called for in direct support for the September 9th national prisoner work strike, and is one of the only gatherings that we know of which explicitly centers the work of people doing direct support with incarcerated folks as opposed to NGOs and non profits. In this conversation we speak about the intentions for the conference as well touching on the prison condition in the US, the National Work Strike, and many other things.

Additionally there is https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/, which is a resource for folks who want more
information about the day to day litigation that affects convicts and their families.

Announcements

AntiFenix

But first here is an announcement regarding AntiFenix by our comrades in the so called Czech Republic:

“Last week the appeal court hearing took place in the High Court in Prague. Russian, vegan, straight-edge anarchist Igor Ševcov, who was appealing his sentence – a 2 year expulsion from the Czech Republic for video recording someone else graffitiing prison walls during a support demonstration (complicity to criminal damage) – was given a new sentence.

The judgement remained the same – the high court still finds him complicit in criminal damage, but the judge changed the penalty. The new sentence: Igor is banned from attending any sporting or cultural event or any event like a manifestation, demonstration, benefit, mobilization, protest or any other action within the anarchist movement.

We do not know yet what it means exactly, but it’s likely that Igor will have to visit a probation office any time there is a big action, and he will be surveilled during any other event by under cover state agents and spies. If he violates his sentence he can be put behind bars for up to 3 years.

We do not know if Igor will follow this sentence, try to oppose it legally or just follow his own agenda and feelings and see what happens in the future. In any case, he has our full support.

If you want to support Igor, rather than congratulating him on his “better” sentence, ask him what kind of support he needs, for he is in a very uncomfortable situation. And mostly, keep changing your environment into a world where repression, exclusion and borders are exchanged for mutual solidarity and freedom.”

Jerry Jai Williams

While national coverage continues surround reactions to police killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Philando Castile in Minneapolis, and so many other people of color, and significantly black men killed by police, protests continue here in Asheville around the police killing of Jai “Jerry” Williams on July 2nd of this year. Jai was shot 7 times and killed by Sgt. Tyler Radford at the Deaverview Apartments in West Asheville on July 2nd. Since then family, community members and activists have continued acting in public to make sure the police account of what happened July 2nd does not go unchallenged. This activity includes presenting a different version of the story, working to support family and make space for their needs, marches downtown, flyering, interceding at public meetings, vigils outside of the Asheville Police HQ and also a sit-in that ran for about 36 hours in the HQ lobby and leading to the arrest of 7 on July 22nd. The demands of the sit-in included the firing, arrest and indictment of Sgt. Radford for the murder of Jai Williams.

Support and resistance events continue. If you’re in the Asheville area and want to help out and draw attention to the case and bring home the message that this touristic mountain town suffers the same plague as the rest of the U.S. in terms of police unaccountability and systemic racism, you can join folks in the streets in vigil outside of the downtown police headquarters at the daily vigils at 6pm and plug in.

Much respect to those resisting, solidarity with the family. Shut it down.